Tag Archives: LGBT

Fellow Spoonie Pokemon Trainers! I’ve figured out a few tricks in order to get a good experience of playing Pokemon Go and not completely spending all of your spoons for several weeks.

If you close the app and just go to the home screen (don’t close it completely or you’ll have to go through the lengthy log in process every time) you can open it up again and your GPS/character will be wandering around for a bit. This counts as distance. I’ve been doing this for hatching eggs in Houston, where it’s almost impossible for even abled people to go out during the day in the summer.

Use Incense! You can attract Pokemon to come to you rather than spending spoons to go searching. You’ll usually get more common Pokemon (Bug and Normal types), but it adds up! The more stardust you have, the better.

Lures! You don’t have to walk too much when you’re at a Pokestop with lures. They come to you. Make sure you’re well stocked on Pokeballs.

Get a friend to drive you around. You’re in charge of catching Pokemon for them, though. Do not Pokemon and drive. It’s actually hilarious trying to catch two at once. Maybe do this around a neighborhood or empty parking lots where erratic driving is a bit more forgivable.

Stock up on common Pokemon in your area (Pidgey, Rattata, Caterpie, Weedle, etc.) and their respective candies. Then, use your Lucky Egg and evolve them during that 30 minute period. You gain about 600 EXP when you evolve something, so with the Lucky Egg, you’ll get 1200 EXP for one evolution! You don’t have to use stardust to evolve anything, either.

Got a wagon? Use it. Have friends or family members pull you around. It’ll remind you of the good old days. They seem a bit better for rougher terrain than wheelchairs.

Here’s something I’ve discovered myself! If you’re in the same spot for a while, some random Pokemon just show up! It’s usually the more common ones in your area, but the more stardust you can get, the better.

How to get whatever Eeveelution you want: (Ok, don’t kill me if this doesn’t work, but I myself have seen two successful desired evolutions with this method. I’ll update it once I’m able to do this myself since I’m low on Eevee candy.) You nickname the Eevees before evolving them. It’s Rainer to get Vaporeon, Sparky to get Jolteon, and Pyro to get Flareon. This is based off of the episode from season 1 of Pokemon where the kid brother gets pressured to evolve his Eevee using an evolution stone. Please comment below if this method actually works for you! I don’t want to be spreading misinformation.
Edit: I’m absolutely positive this is real. I’ve seen it about three more times and I’ve done it myself to get a Flareon and a Jolteon after getting two Vaporeon by chance. It works.

The curve ball. You can do this by spinning the Pokeball around in circles before you throw it. You can tell it’s charged up if you see sparks flying from it. It’s a bit harder to catch stuff, but you get an extra 10 EXP for doing it successfully.

Here’s one I’ve just heard recently. You can download the Ingress app and search for Pokestops in your area since the Pokemon Go app doesn’t map out outside your area. Landmarks are also marked in the Ingress app so you can plan out routes and breaks. Pokestops refresh every 5 minutes or so, so you can rest in a shady area near one and farm items and 50 EXP every time.

This is something I have been trying to tell myself, but know when to stop. I got really close to hurting myself from walking nearly 5 km in one go to hatch an egg. My knees and ankles were radiating with pain. I was surprised that people near me couldn’t feel it. Don’t do that. Ash wouldn’t want that. He knew when it was time to stop and take a rest for the day. There’s no need to feel like you need to compete with others that are playing. It’s just a fun game (that should’ve probably had a bit more time spent on it with all the server problems there have been, but I digress).

And as a final question to Spoonie Trainers: I know we all can’t go on a Pokemon journey, but what kind of life do you think you would have if Pokemon were real? I’ve always pictured myself keeping them as pets or guard animals – most of them being abandoned strays before I find them. This is the case with almost all of my pets, so I figured that wouldn’t change in this fantasy world.

So today was the day of Houston’s Gay Pride parade. I wasn’t invited to go with anyone, but even if I had, I would say no in a heartbeat because my experiences there have been nothing but awful.

The first year I went I was left alone by friends in front of the Smoothie King on Montrose for a good hour or so. Mind you, I’m barely over 5 feet tall. And I was alone in the middle of the fourth largest city in America.

I was super pissed.

Last year was even worse, I’d say. It was a few months before I was diagnosed and I was in full swing of my symptoms. I knew I shouldn’t have gone from the very beginning, but I just had wanted to have a good time with my friends. Even before I left the house, I had thrown up because I had rushed eating my food because they said they were ready to go.

Once we got there, I was excited to see all the different people in Houston. This one little girl even wanted to take a picture with me because I had dressed up like a unicorn. It was super adorable, but soon the heat index of 107 got to me. I was severely anemic at the time and I didn’t know it, so I was extremely sensitive to the heat. I couldn’t even take a hot shower at the time without getting dizzy and nauseous.

I tried hiding out inside a Half Price Bookstore for the air conditioning and just the general comfort of being surrounded by books until an employee said that I couldn’t sit on the floor. I was too sick to argue, so I left. I wanted to do nothing but go back inside, but I faithfully trailed behind my friends as they saw other people they knew. I ended up just having to run to a trashcan to throw up the rest of what was left in me from lunch.

The worst part of Pride was that every restaurant and fast food place in the area had lines out the door of people who wanted to get in. My friends wanted McDonald’s while I just wanted to be bathed in ice. They got lunch while I got a Sprite.

Looking back, I probably should’ve gotten a water.

I talked to a nice lesbian couple while my friends ate their food. One of them wasn’t reacting very well to the heat either, so we complained about it until they left. I held my cold drink around my neck, hoping it would cool me down. Once they were done eating, we left back into the blazing sun.

We then saw that the crowd fences were being set up, so we started walking to find a good spot. I stood, leaning on the fence for a while until I felt like I had to sit down. Even with the white dress I had on, I found myself sitting on the curb of a Houston street next to a completely full trash can, sipping on my Sprite and eating the ice until it was completely gone. I was beginning to grow nauseous again and there was nothing I could do. I looked around desperately, hoping against all hope that I wasn’t going to throw up.

It happened.

I had no choice but to throw up next to the trashcan after a brief warning to the people around me. Luckily there was a nice group of older Hispanic women who basically dumped the ice from their cooler on me and tied my hair back within seconds. It was the most refreshed I had felt all day.

Once I was cleaned up, those same women handed me a Gatorade and I sipped on it while the parade finally started. Even though the sun had set, I was starting to feet overheated again because of the people around me. I had to go sit for the rest of the night in the side street watching the rest of the parade alone from afar until a friend came to join me later on.

But as I sat on the curb, slowly drinking the Gatorade, a teenage boy came up to me and said, “You are the saddest unicorn I’ve ever seen.”

I blearily looked up at the voice and saw the concerned faces of him and his friends peering down at me. I had been hoping to be left alone because I didn’t want to be a bother.

The boy held out his hand to me and I saw something small. I took it and saw that it was a tiny toy pink dolphin. I turned it in my hands to closely inspect it.

“It’s a good luck charm,” he said. “Please don’t die.” He and his friends smiled at me and then walked away together to watch the parade.

I’m pretty sure it was that tiny pink dolphin that got me through the rest of the night.